The Impact of Body Shape Concerns on Responsibility Attributions for Spousal Infidelity

This study aims to explore the influence of women’s body dissatisfaction on their romantic relationships, by investigating how their body shape concerns influence the responsibility attributions they make when exposed to spousal infidelity. The current experimental research was conducted on a sample of 60 women who were divided into two groups according to their level of body shape concern. They were asked to identify with the wife in four sexual jealousy‑inducing vignettes which varied according to the attractiveness of the mistress (upward versus downward comparison) and according to the nature of the extramarital affair (emotional versus sexual). All participants assigned responsibility for the extramarital affair to the three characters – wife, husband and mistress – for each of the four scenarios. Our results revealed that body shape concern significantly influenced the responsibility attributions made by our participants. The attractiveness of the mistress (the type of social comparison) and the nature of the affair also influenced the responsibility attributions of our participants, but not to the expected extent.